In any normal week, this would be a breather for Penn State. But this is not a normal week.

You have the emotional-valley factor in play, the Nittany Lions having played two emotionally draining games in a row against Michigan and Ohio State.

On top of that, you have the rout factor in play, the Lions’ confidence surely having been shaken by the debacle in Columbus.

So, what would usually be a speed bump becomes a barricade to be removed. Illinois is not a good football team. The Illini have not won a Big Ten game in 17 tries dating back to the middle of Ron Zook’s last season in 2011.

Second-year coach Tim Beckman parlayed modest success at Toledo into this job and is so far 5-14 with all the wins coming against minor-league non-con opposition. In general, he has appeared a bit out of his depth.

But Beckman made a shrewd hire in the off-season past when he nabbed just-fired Western Michigan head coach Bill Cubit to be his offensive coordinator. Very smart move. Cubit and fourth-year quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase, a potentially very good QB who’s never gotten a break at Illinois, give the Illini a fighting chance against what’s been a porous PSU defense.

Cubit just turned 60 a couple of weeks ago and he’s been around – 11 different college programs at every level – but he’s a young 60. He’s a Philadelphia guy who grew up in the Delaware County suburb of Sharon Hill and then played four decades ago as a wideout for Tubby Raymond’s Delaware Blue Hens.

Then began a long list of coaching stops working under some memorable names – Lou Saban at Central Florida, Gerry Faust at Akron, Larry Smith at Missouri. His first head coaching job was at Widener (1992-96).

Cubit also has a couple of Penn State connections: He was Galen Hall’s quarterback coach at Florida in 1989 and Greg Schiano’s first offensive coordinator when he took on the Rutgers rehab job (2001-02), originally coaching his own son Ryan.

All of that led to Western Michigan where Cubit was head coach for eight years (2005-12) and worked wonders at the perennial MAC backwater. Coming off a winless MAC season the year before he arrived, Cubit’s Broncos came within a whisker of upsetting Florida State in 2006, then did beat Virginia (2006), Iowa (2007), Illinois (2008) and Connecticut (2011) while suffering narrow losses to Cincinnati (2006) and Purdue (2011) in bowl games.

The guy knows how to run an offense and he can recruit Florida which is why Beckman paid him enough to come to UI.

Cubit also has struck a chord with Scheelhaase who deserves a break if anyone does. The Illinois quarterback was originally recruited by Ron Zook’s assistant head coach Mike Locksley and there began a string of five different offensive coordinators under which he’s attempted to do his job including a ridiculous tandem arrangement last year.

The multiple, pro-style offense Cubit runs uses Scheelhaase’s running threat more as a decoy and spreads the ball around to different receivers. It gets the ball out quickly and maximizes Scheelhaase’s ability to hit short passes while deemphasizing his weakness with long throws. The result has been by far the best completion percentage (.653), yards per attempt (8.4) and TD/int rate (12/5) of his career. His running numbers aren’t what they were as an underclassman but Cubit wants him to be a quarterback not some hybridized dual-threat.

Cubit mixes his play calls and is really creative. Unfortunately, it was a botched trick play – a double-reverse where a receiver cut the wrong way – that put top senior wideout Ryan Lankford in position to get clocked last week by Michigan State. The resulting collision chipped a bone in Lankford’s shoulder and his college career is over.

That loss will hurt because Lankford was UI's best deep threat. WR Steve Hull is possibly coming back from an injury for the Penn State game. Running back Devin Church moves to WR this week to add some outside speed.

It would do the Illini well to get the running game going but that's been an issue. When the run is working, it has not been through power but with gadget methods. Illinois has racked up yards and points against Cincinnati, Miami (OH) and Wisconsin. But when no ground yards are mined, Scheelhaase becomes a liability on second- and third-and-long and you get disasters like Michigan State last week (a 42-3 rout).

Which brings us to Illinois’ defense. It doesn’t exist. This is the worst resistance in the Big Ten. There is no pass rush. It allows more yards on the ground than anyone except Indiana. Running backs from Washington, Nebraska and Wisconsin all had season highs against the Illini. About all it offers is a pair of decent linebackers – senior Jonathan Brown at the will and resolute Ohioan Mason Monheim in the middle.

The rest is a disaster. The secondary lost promising soph corner V’Angelo Bentley to an injury two weeks ago against Wisconsin. Beckman has been tossing freshmen out there and getting predictable results.

In all, the mid-season defensive 3-deep lists two seniors out of 33. That’s almost impossible unless you’re starting a program from scratch.

Which is what Illinois will be doing yet again in another year or two if Beckman can’t keep Cubit on staff to work with a couple of interesting QB acquisitions next season.